New Zealand-based online safety organization NetSafe have announced it will hold the first international conference on Cybercitizens: Risks, Rights and Responsibilities of Participation in the Information Age in the country.

The conference will run 28 – 30th of July in Queenstown. International experts from the United Stated, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia will gather to discuss how users participate in the information age.

NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker says "as our online lives grow, so too does the importance of understanding e-crime, online dangers and the steps we can take to manage these problems."

“Although, Cyberspace is a virtual space, it is real. Just as citizens face risks and have responsibilities on city streets – citizens in cyberspace experience risk, have rights to protection and honour responsibilities. That’s what we’re gathering to discuss. Think of it as working towards neighbourhood watch for a new generation. Parents, educators, government, industry and citizens need to do this together,” says Cocker.

Keynote speakers at the Cybercitizens Conference include, among others, experts on online child safety, internet law and cyberbullying such as Jeff Cole PhD, Director of the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future - the Home of the World Internet Project of which New Zealand is a partner. Cole serves as an adviser to the White House and leading companies around in the world such as Coca Cola and Microsoft as they craft digital strategies.

Also present will be kiwi Peter Dengate Thrush, the current Chair of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

New Zealand’s five teen ambassadors to the first International Youth Advisory Congress will attend the event. These five students wrote scripts for an animated series that looks at online safety and security, www.netbasics.org.nz. Their winning entries earned them a trip to London to meet at the IYAC with 200 other young people from around the world. These five pupils will help write a strategy on the online protection of children – A Children and Young People’s Global Online Charter that will be presented to the UN in October 2008.

The conference will also host the International Project on Cyberbulling and AUT University will release the New Zealand survey findings of the World Internet Project which show the social impact of the Internet on New Zealanders.